


Just a Feeling

by noblydonedonnanoble



Series: The Road We Never Drove On [13]
Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble





	Just a Feeling

                 _He’s speechless. He’s speechless because Catherine is broken, and this is the first time she’s made it so clear. He’s speechless because suddenly, all signs are pointing to him as the one who broke her. He’s speechless because really, what can he say? “I’m sorry that I’m getting married in a month”? “Maybe in another lifetime”?_

_Of course, hecould say, “I’m sorry that I keep showing up. I’m sorry that I won’t let you forget.”_

_But how sorry is he, really?_

_After he fucked her, she shouted at him. Told him that despite everything, she’s in love with him and she just wants it to stop. She wants her feelings to_ go away _, since as she said, “The rest of my feelings are gone, so why do I still love you?” And now she’s curled up under her sheets on her side of the bed, naked. Even though she’s staring at the wall, her eyes are dead. He makes another attempt to say goodbye, which she ignores._

_Is he really sorry that he’s done this? Will the regret keep him up at night?_

_No._

_Not yet, at least._

_Finally, he turns and exits her flat without even receiving a farewell._

_Unbeknownst to him, this is the night she writes,_ You just left my flat at 2 in the morning and I’m miserable.

***

                In LA, she doesn’t so much purge David from her system as she does take every idea of him, any feelings for him, and cram them as deep down as humanly possible.

                It certainly feels like he’s gone, though. By the time her run on _The Office_ is complete, she decides that when she goes back home, she will be able to live her life without David and she will be happy about it.

***

                At least once a week, he calls her flat. Not because he expects her to actually answer; just... he misses her. Listening to her answering machine makes him miss her a bit less.

                David starts to hate himself, listening to that voice over and over.

                Sometimes, he leaves her messages. “I wanted to invite you to lunch, but you’re on another continent.” “I bought a cool deck of cards while out of the country for a film and I wish we could play together.” “Saw the show last night. You were the funniest part. Obviously.” “I… hi, I guess.”

                The thought of Catherine getting angry with him for filling her voicemail doesn’t even occur to him, because she _never_ checks her messages.

                And if she decides to, and does get angry, at least she’ll be talking to him.

                Even if she spends eternity yelling at him, he doesn’t care so long as she’s not spending eternity giving him the silent treatment.

***

                When Catherine arrives, lugging her suitcases through the door, the first thing she notices is the beeping.

                It takes her the longest time to even identify what the sound is. She follows it through rooms, searching for the source. It’s none of the fire alarms. She didn’t manage to leave something in the microwave before going to LA (that would have broken some sort of record, no doubt, because even for Catherine that would be ridiculous).

                And then it occurs to her that it’s her phone. Alerting her that she has messages.

                Did she really always allow that beeping to continue? Because she never checked her messages, so presumably it was an ever-present sound before she left, too. Except right before flew off to LA, when she simply decided to clear them all.

                She can’t stand the sound. She tells it to play.

                “You have: 150 new messages.”

                “Fucking hell!” she exclaims.

                This is nothing compared to how she feels when David’s voice echoes through the flat. “Hey, Catherine. I… I know you’re out of town. I just wanted to tell you I got what you left for me. Um. I threw it away. I hope you don’t mind. Not because… I don’t know. Sorry, I’ll sod off. I don’t even know why I’m bothering; it’s not like you’ll ever listen to this.”

                “I walked by your mum’s old shop today. It’s vacant right now. I wonder what they’ll put in there…”

                “Catherine, I’ve got a cold; what kind of tea do you think I should stock up on?”

                On and on they go. Few of them are more than a sentence or two. If she wanted to, Catherine could just turn it off, delete all of his calls and convince herself that he had done nothing. But she finds herself completely stupefied.

                Was this what he felt like when he found all of those letters on his doorstep?

                She wonders if he felt like crying as much as she does.

                The man on the phone slowly becomes her best friend again, making references to long-forgotten inside jokes and just sounding disappointed that she’s gone. When was the last time he acted this way?

                It’s in message 137 that he says it.

                “Did I ever actually tell you that I love you?” She chokes on nothing but air, coughing and spluttering while he continues on. “Really. I mean… No one knows me like you do. Not my friends, not ex-girlfriends, not Geor- No one. It’s just you, Catherine. How could… how could I not love someone like you?”

                Catherine throws it. If she could, she’d hurt David, but she might as well hurt the phone instead; she could always get a new one of those.

                What the fuck is he playing at?

***

                Really, he should just be happy she shows up when no one is home. Because she is fuming. When he opens the door, he doesn’t even have an opportunity to smile before she’s pushing him forward and stepping inside, kicking the door shut with her foot.

                “Do you think you’re funny?” she says.

                He squints at her. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

                “David!” The anger in her voice seems to register completely to him, and any ounce of joy on his face is wiped away to be replaced with concern. “After living away from it for so long, I realized how irritating the beeping for my voicemail is.” He murmurs his agreement, which she ignores. “So I listened to them.”

                “You… you what?” His eyes have grown wide.

                “Well, not all of them. There were 150 of them, after all. But I actually got almost to the end.”

                “Catherine.”

                She pauses and looks at him closely, waiting. Because presumably if he bothered to interrupt, he has an explanation and she _desperately_ wants to hear an explanation.

                For a moment, David stammers over an appropriate statement. “I… Well… It’s just… Christ Catherine I miss you. I miss us; what we were before I fucked it all up.”

                When she was in America, she was determined to believe that she had no lingering feelings for David. None. Zero. How is it that all it takes is for him to look at her with his big puppy eyes and gush over her for two seconds before she’s ready to fall into his arms again?

                But that thought just makes her even more furious. “You can’t do this. I told you I was done.”

                This, finally, makes him properly angry and he steps forward, closing any existing distance between them and standing so that she had to crane her neck to look at his face. “And I don’t get a say?”

                “Why the fuck should you? You’re married! Your heart isn’t on the line here, David.”

                Both of them are breathing heavily. He’s trying his best to think of an appropriate response and Catherine feels confident that he won’t be able to say anything that she can’t refute.

                When it comes down to it, he kisses her instead. His hands cup her cheeks and he backs her against the door, trapping her between the wooden surface and his body, which he grinds against hers.

                And she can’t very easily refute that. He pulls back, but only enough so that he can look her in the eyes as he says, “Never say that, ever; do you know how much you broke me with those letters? I sat and cried over them.” He takes a deep breath, clearly not sure how wise it would be to continue. But he does. “I called your mobile, and told myself that if you picked up, I would call off the wedding. But you’d already canceled your service.”

***

                Really, there are worse things Catherine could do than sleep with a man in the bed he shares with his wife.

                None come to mind, but this is certainly not the worst.

                But almost as soon as he rolls off of her onto his side of the bed, she begins internally screaming at herself.

                _You have no self-control. Didn’t you promise yourself never again? What do you call that? How do you expect him to respect you when you’re fucking prepared to fall into bed with him at a moment’s notice? At his house, too. You’re a horrible person. You’re lying where his wife lies every night. In what universe is this a good idea?_

_If you allow this to happen, he’ll only break you into tiny pieces all over. What can he really do for you? He’s married. He’s a father. He can’t promise you anything._

_Maybe friendship, but even so one of you will slip up sooner or later and you’ll find yourself in this position again._

_From the moment he first kissed you, this choice was the only choice._

                “You okay, Catherine?”

                She looks over and sees that David is lying on his side, watching her closely. “I… yes. Of course.”

                Vaguely, purely because she’s so aware of her surroundings, Catherine hears the front door open. And hears a voice shouting, “David? You home?”

                “No no no you’re fucking kidding me no this is not happening.” The room becomes a mess, the two of them scrambling for articles of clothing and whispering to one another. “Is my bra on that side of the bed?” “Yes, are my jeans over there?” “Trade you.” The entire time, Catherine is still screaming at herself. _Now look at the fucking mess you’ve gotten into he let this happen he should have considered that his own_ wife _would be coming home and that he should put off fucking you for later. Maybe he thinks this is funny, this mess of rushing about. Maybe he gets off on it._

                When Georgia peeks into the room, David is showing Catherine his bookshelf, saying, “And I got this one from Craig when we were both recording for _How to Train Your Dragon_ because he said he was such a big fan of my Doctor that—oh Georgia, hello dear! I didn’t hear you come in.”

                She strolls over and takes David’s hand, standing up on her toes to give him a peck on the lips. “David, you didn’t tell me you’d be having Catherine over for dinner.”

                “Oh, no, actually I was just leaving…” She backs away from the couple slightly, trying to distort her face into an apologetic one. “Sorry Georgia. It was great to see you, though.”

***

                Two days later, Catherine calls him.

                “I was just thinking about you,” he says, a smile in his voice.

                Why oh why does he have to say things like that. “David, I—“

                “Also we should get lunch. Do you feel up to it?”

                “No, David. Stop, for a second. Please.” She waits to make sure that he’s not going to speak anymore before continuing. “I… What we did. That was a mistake. I mean… my showing up at your house, even, was a mistake.”

                “… What?”

***

                In theory, David understands. He understands that he’s an arse and Catherine doesn’t want him to hurt her. He understands that he’s an arse and Catherine doesn’t want him to hurt Georgia, or Olive.

                So why does he feel like this is his first ever break-up, moping about the house and blasting depressing punk music so loud that he can feel it destroying his ear drums?

                Why does the concept of life without Catherine sound like an eternity?

                Really, she just said she needed a break. To get over him, to feel ready to be _just friends_.

                But just like with real relationships… It doesn’t sound like the “break” means anything but the end.


End file.
